Quick links

websites: frequently asked questions

Why choose Logo Design?

With over 10 years experience of website design, Logo Design and Marketing is a respected website design studio in Devon that produces some of the most stylish and effective professional websites at the leading edge of technology. We employ a dozen award winning website designers and web developers in Devon, UK. Our affordable, award winning website designs include ecommerce sites and content managed systems (CMS) as well as brochure or presentation websites. We specialise in website designs that achieve marketing objectives: our service is outstanding and our prices are unbeatable.

What kind of websites do you design?

We design brochure websites, CMS content managed websites, e-commerce websites dynamic database driven websites and interactive Flash websites. With a website built by Logo Design & Marketing’s award winning website designers you can be assured of a robust website which is also stylish and beautifully designed. It will be easy to navigate and its content will be straight forward for you to manage. It will also be search engine friendly to stand the best chance of high rankings in search results for your chosen keywords.

Is it a full service?

Our comprehensive custom website design services can include writing the copy, sourcing the photography, making illustrations, diagrams, animations etc.

Can I deal directly with the website designers?

Yes, when you deal with us you speak directly to the website designers who are working on your project, whether they are writing the copy, designing the content or programming its functionality.

Will my website integrate with my real world systems?

Our website designers build websites that integrate with specialist business functions and back office systems including order processing and stock control databases. These can be made to work in tandem and synchronise with EPOS, warehouse and back office systems.

What about Flash?

Our website designers are experts in using Flash and related website technologies like Java, CSS and XHTML. Whatever the website technology employed, the choreography, animation and visual effects will have been produced to achieve tangible business goals.

Is your website design SEO Search engine friendly?

We build search engine friendly websites. As part of our professional website design service, we can advise you how to get your site ranked higher in search engine results by using current SEO best practice.

What about internet marketing?

Our website developers can build email marketing campaigns including emailers, email surveys and online questionnaires. And because we have the expertise and experience beyond website design, as a full service design and marketing agency, we can undertake research, copy writing, proof reading, photo research, pack shot and location photography.

What about internet marketing?

CMS content managed system

CMS content managed systems

We can include any level of content management into your website from simple 'latest news' or marketing promotion panels to fully fledged, all singing all dancing solutions. All websites should have topical content – even search engine robots like new content to read and they reward accordingly!

CMS package

Our basic ‘off the shelf’ CMS system costs less than £1,000 including VAT! It’s been developed in-house: it’s slick, fast, feature rich and easy to learn and use. The initial site layout and design is achieved working virtually alongside one of our designers using Goto Meeting online collaboration so that you can see the designer’s screen live on your own computer while you talk on the telephone. The site is then set up for you with the main areas titled and styled with your brand and colour scheme. We use the same system of Goto Meeting and telephone for your training and first month’s free support.

Features include:

Flash or Java cross-fading picture box/slide show on Home page
Users can turn on or off up to seven top level navigation buttons plus a Home button
Each button can have up to eight or more drop down menu items
Tabbed pages with up to eight tabs
No limit on number of pages
Email reply form included
Add tables, links, PDF downloads, photographs and graphics
Unique picture editor allows you to crop and re-size photographs
+ buttons enable visitors to enlarge type from small to medium to large sizes
Page footer links are included for Ts & Cs, Privacy Policy and site map
Search engine robot-friendly site map generated automatically
Include meta tag information as you add content for SEO
Google Analytics code included: monitor visits, page views and more
First year’s hosting included in price with up to 5 email accounts

We will divert your existing URL to the new site or help you select, register and set up a new URL.

For an extra cost we can provide specific content like graphics, Flash, animation or video or we can populate the whole site using material you provide.

To find out more please call us on 01752 830000 or email enquiries@logodesign.co.uk we’d love to discuss how we can help you take more control of your presence on the web.

Ecommerce sites

What makes a successful ecommerce site?

It is only common sense to understand that merely having a shop is no guarantee of selling anything, particularly if what you are selling is the same as everyone else in the mall. Retail is detail, stylish shops are really stylish brands and – in every sense of the word – they are well positioned. At Logo we are virtual shop fitters, virtual window dressers, virtual demonstrators… we provide online signage, point of sale, point of purchase, customer relations, advertising and so on. But we need a clear business rationale to be able to help you make your web shop a success. We need a clear understanding of your market; your potential customers and your competitors, we need to agree on your unique selling proposition and we need to make you stand out from the crowd. Armed with that we can help you build a profitable ecommerce business.

What kind of ecommerce?

If you want to sell from your website and if you are new to ecommerce there are several options available to you but first it is worth considering if this is likely to be a commercial success. Here is the million dollar question: why would anyone want to buy from you? Is it a great price, terrific range, unique product/service, latest fashion, brilliant idea? So who else is doing it, how much are they charging and how much business are they really doing? Check out the web and check out Ebay. Still confident? Let’s go!

What is dropshipping?

Dropshipping is where a person or company sells someone else’s goods on the web which they do not actually stock themselves. They take orders at marked up prices which they then pass onto a wholesaler paying the wholesale price and shipping costs. The goods are dispatched by the wholesaler, often using the branding of the website where the original order was made.

Which e-commerce program?

There are several ready made virtual shops of varying quality and complexity including ‘free’ and open source solutions. We can help you choose what is best for you and make any modifications, help you set it all up and get it running smoothly or we can build a purpose built solution to exactly answer your requirements. The crucial bit is making your shop look and feel special and to promote your USPs - unique selling propositions – to build your brand and set you apart in the marketplace.

How do I run my shop?

Latest products and special offers are obvious areas to use the content management system (CMS) without the risk of tampering with carefully designed ‘window dressed’ display pages. In practice there are usually plenty of other areas of a webshop where the client should be in control and actively maintaining. This can only happen if you have the conviction to devote company time on a regular basis to refreshing the content of your webshop. And then, of course, as every good shopkeeper will know is the ‘on sales’ which often involves suggestions for accompanying products. ‘People who bought this also bought…’ How many times have you bought ‘special shoe cleaner’ to go with those new shoes?

Will my virtual shop integrate with my real world systems?

Yes, you can share the same stock control system, order processing and sales ledger, booking system or whatever.

How much does the payment system charge?

(prices correct at July 2009) The simplest way to collect money from your website is to use PayPal which is easy and fast to set up and will enable you to accept payments from all the major cards. With PayPal there is no set up or monthly fees, you only get charged per transaction and this ranges from 3.4% + 20p for monthly transactions up to £1,500 to 1.4% for monthly transactions over £55,000. Internet Payment Gateways like WorldPay, Verisign, Netbanx, PayPoint and Protx (now SagePay) connect companies with an Internet Merchant Account (IMA) to their acquiring banks. PayPoint currently charges £10 a month for small start up businesses trading only in sterling and going to the PayPoint branded site. It is easy to upgrade to higher levels of service including shopping basket integration and hosting your own branded payment page on your own secure server. Protx which is part of Sage charges small users £20 per month for up to 1,000 transactions per quarter. For more transactions than this they charge 10p per transaction. Worldpay, for annual sales of up £200,000 will charge a £200 set up fee and thereafter £30 a month on top of which they will take 50p per debit card transaction and 4.5% for credit cards. Not sure? Don’t worry we’ll help you sort out the system which best suits your needs and get you up and running and taking payments over the web.

How can I increase sales?

Watching how visitors to your website behave is key to not only understanding what interests them but also what works well and what doesn’t. As a matter of course we include a statistics program like Google Analytics coding into the sites we build. It’s free and it tells you day by day not only how many visitors you have had but also which pages they visited and in what order, how long they stayed, where they were when they left. It tells you where they came from, what search engines directed them and which words and phrases they typed in to the search engines. As with any marketing data, it is at its most useful if it is monitored over a period and also when things change like launching an Adwords or Pay Per Click campaign.

What about hosting and security?

Secure Socket Layers (SSL which causes the padlock symbol to appear in your browser) use sophisticated encryption techniques to keep customers’ details private. Banks are very cagey about how much money is lost through internet fraud but even the most conservative estimate is £290 million last year in the UK. There are a number of checks that are and can be made to verify the authenticity of a buyer and it is worth examining the options available from the payment gateways.

Presentation sites

The vast majority of websites that belong to businesses and organisations are ‘brochure’ sites in so far as they are not trying to sell anything online. Brochure sites can have a variety of objectives including marketing, information, advice, lobbying, communication within a community, discussion forum and so on. For the most part they tend to be 'static'’ sites: there is often no need for the site to interact with the viewer. This does not mean that brochure sites should not be exciting, topical and creative. But there are a few factors which should be taken into account when planning a brochure site:

How do I plan my site?

Unless you have well defined objectives the site will lack focus and it will not communicate clearly and effectively and you are probably wasting valuable opportunities to exploit the power of communicating over the web. Understanding who you are trying to reach and influence will dictate the style and tone of language, the layout and ordering of information, the choice of images and so on.

How should the content be organised?

Websites usually provide the means for users to find their own way around according to their particular interests and needs. Good navigation systems will take them quickly to where they want to go with the minimum of clicks. Putting one’s mind into the mind of ‘everyman’ visitor is part of the trick and it is not necessarily an easy trick to perform. We have known clients who had marketing data sheets with no title apart from the product code number used as the large heading at the top! We have known designers who blame the client for not spotting that a tiny, subtle, almost invisible scribble is, in fact, the link he is groping around for. Remember: you are never more than a click away from loosing a visitor.

How can I get it planned out and organised?

As with every project at Logo we analyse a job in order to cost it. We need enough knowledge of the project to assess how long it will take us and what resources we need to complete it (we always charge what we quote, never more) see our website briefing form. As part of this process we will draw up a progression chart showing crucial milestones for us, our client and sub contractors along with any payment stages. Often we will draw a schematic representation of the site to show how the navigation will work: how things connect to each other and what is sequential or hierarchical.

When do I see the first visuals?

After all the dull, dry, boring planning and costing stuff we don our smocks and easels and make a right old mess being creative with string and glue to produce stunning visuals for the home page and for any other major parts of the site. Once these have been approved – and not until then – we make the master artwork and then code it into whatever language is required (HTML, Java, PHP, ABC and XYZ) and Bob’s your uncle.

How can I view work in progress?

Work in progress can be monitored by logging into a secure area on one of our web servers using your own password. We also use Net Meeting which enables you to see the designer’s screen while you talk on the phone.

Will my site always display properly?

One of the final stages of the build process is to test the new site on all the popular web browsers and operating systems. Some funny things can happen: what looks great on a Mac running Safari can look like a dog's dinner on Firefox on a PC. Even different versions of Internet Explorer will display code in a different way, or not at all sometimes! Screen resolutions are getting better and better and now less than 3% of surfers have a screen resolution of 600 x 800 pixels which is the size many websites are still being built to. We work to 1224 x 768 pixels for most standard sites these days but we can also employ techniques for scaling to mobile device screens (iphones for example are 480 x 320 pixels).

Can I monitor visitor behaviour?

Watching how visitors to your website behave is key to not only understanding what interests them but also what works well and what doesn’t. As a matter of course we include Google Analytics or other site statistics coding into the sites we build. It’s free and it tells you day by day not only how many visitors you have had but also which pages they visited and in what order, how long they stayed, where they were when they left. It tells you where they came from, what search engines directed them and which words and phrases they typed in to the search engines.

Can I change the contents of my website?

Search engines favour sites where the content is regularly changed and updated. Increasingly the sites we build have at least one or two sections which the clients manage themselves. Latest news and current job vacancies are obvious areas to use a simple content management system (CMS) without the risk of tampering with carefully designed ‘editorial’ pages. But beware of stale, out of date content. Spend a little time, at least once a month, ensuring your news really is news!

How do I start the ball rolling?

Pick up the phone and call us on 01752 830000, we’d love to chew over your project with you. Fill in our website briefing form (either fill it in online or download it as a Word document) and we will provide you with a quote – it’s as simple as that.